Recipes

Valentines Day is an opportunity to luxuriate in romance and fine dining. Romantic dishes are often much like love itself — delicate, intimate, complex, daring. Both, properly nurtured, can result in sumptuous rewards.
These recipes for Valentine Day dinner derive from French dishes that feature elegant ingredients and rich flavors. Many of the ingredients have special significance in the language of love. Preparation is for two.
Each amply rewards the attention in preparation or consumption.

The food on the Thanksgiving table is a bounty to share while celebrating family, friends and the joys of life. Preparing the feast is a labor of love among my family.
Yet after the frenzy of Thanksgiving cooking, it’s nice to find simple ways to use leftovers while retaining the flavors and special qualities of holiday meals. These recipes are designed to do just that: reinvent Thanksgiving leftovers in easy, flexible ways that are still delicious and satisfying.
Happy eating!

Jack-o-lanterns have withered, but pumpkins are not old news yet. November is the biggest month of the year for pumpkin consumption. Pie, ice cream, cheesecake, soup, muffins, bread and lattes all feature pumpkins this time of year. In anticipation of Thanksgiving, canned pumpkin sales soar. Ninety percent of canned pumpkin sales are made in the fourth quarter.
Canned pumpkin is good, but Libby and all the other canners get it the same place you can: in the shell.

Heaven & earth never agreed better to frame a place for man’s habitation; were it fully manured and inhabited by industrious people.
Captain John Smith barely exaggerated. So good are the fish and flesh, fruit and vegetables of Chesapeake Country that they need no adornment. Or very little. Salt and pepper, oil and vinegar are complements enough. Add some fire, and you’ve got all you need.

The lessons at Anne Arundel Community ­College’s Culinary Institute will last well after the new yearBob Melamud

Bob Melamud

Food eaten between November 1 and New Year’s Day contains no calories. I suspect I’m not alone in honoring this conviction. Yet a lifetime of stepping on the scale January 2 has convinced me that our cherished belief is a cruel urban legend.
This year I faced an additional challenge. Our editor assigned me to take and report on an Anne Arundel Community College Culinary Institute holiday class. Biscotti, cookies, Scandinavian baking and truffles tempted me — and promised an overabundance of extra calories.

Can Thanksgiving dinner be both wonderful and boring at the same time? I’ve been having the exact same Thanksgiving dinner for almost 25 years now, and it’s getting old. Every year it’s the same people, same place, same menu.
What’s changeable?
It’s family, so that’s not changing.
Turkey with stuffing, sweet potatoes, gravy and the trimmings are too traditional to change.

What inspires you?
We love all kinds of baked goods but particularly enjoy trying traditional breads from around the world.
What’s your culinary background?
Thomas owned an ice-cream store in downtown Annapolis for 25 years before switching to bread.
Where do you eat on a night off — at home or out?

What inspires you?
I was inspired by working with great chefs in Washington, D.C.’s, fine-dining restaurants. They taught me to seek out unique ingredients and be fearless when it comes to creating. I’m also inspired by the wonderful fresh, local ingredients we have in this area.

What a year we’ve had for rockfish! In our fifth month of abundance, big fish are still just about everywhere in the mid-Bay, with anglers catching them using just about every method.
Eating fresh Chesapeake rockfish is one of the perks of living in the Tidewater. One of the many attributes of the fish is that its flavor can be influenced by the addition of easy-to-make sauces, which can give a fresh rockfish dinner a completely different taste each time you serve it.